Midweek Musings 25 27.05.26 Urban vet care
Urban Vet Care infra.
By Malini Shankar
My blog today is about a subject
that stares at us all. Vet Care in India: Or the lack of it. Government run veterinary
clinics and hospitals dot the rural landscape. These clinics are indeed helpful
for livestock, livestock breeders and veterinary medicine. But look at the
urban landscape – where pets rule our lives. Indeed in my house, the dogs and
cats are the masters of our house in Bangalore, our lives, we the pet parents
are their slaves, obsessed with them, love them senseless, pet them till they
reject my love and keep me at paw’s length.
I am at a loss to find a home
visiting veterinarian. Despite Whatsapp savvy keen English speaking young
veterinarians, they find it difficult to drop by to treat a pet needing
emergency care … only because the veterinarians can’t see me emotional and
anxious. The other extreme is they are so nonchalant or money minded that the word
emergency has only fiscal connotations, not in terms of professional
commitment, am afraid. They don’t answer calls, nor see messages, don’t reply
to desperate messages even for emergency vet care.
I lost two sub adult cats within
a space of 4 days not so much because they were ailing but because of sheer
negligence or indifference of the vet who had started treatment of the cat.
Imagine he did not answer 23 calls. Nor was he sensitive / responsible enough to
connect me with anyone else in his professional / peer network. My cat had a
paralytic stroke and lock jaw, I couldn’t convey this to him or he did not
acknowledge my desperate messages.
It is one thing to keep himself emotionally
isolated when he sees an animal die, but to be so insensate to an animal’s
suffering defies the very purpose of his professional qualification and oath of
service.
Bangalore even boasts of a not
for profit pet hospital or two… In end effect they take a minimum of 7 – 8 hours
to visit the place. A month ago I had to rescue an injured parakeet from the
garden, but by the time the animal ambulance came, it succumbed.
It is to protect myself /
ourselves from such monstrous opportunists in this profession that we are in
need of vet care infrastructure. There should be a Plan B. Yes there are
veterinary start-ups claiming and advertising 24 X 7 door step vet care
solutions; but they are so hideously expensive. It will be reasonable if they charge
a consultation, transport surcharge, reimbursement of cost of medication plus costs
of emergency vet care, but to charge upwards of Rs. 10000 for a 1 hour visit is
scandalous. Again it is bereft of professional ethics and commitment to serve
the animals they qualify themselves to attend to. On one occasion street dogs
mauled my pet cat but being a Sunday no veterinarian was bothered to respond to
phone calls. You can imagine how
challenging it was to carry the injured pet cat by car to the nearest privately
run, efficient not for profit pet hospital. There, late Sunday evening, the
duty doctors gave it first aid and asked us to bring the cat back for surgery
and expert care … next morning. The pregnant cat was treated, operated upon spayed,
vaccinated and discharged. She recovered remarkably over a couple of months and
is doing well.
Pet animals feel traumatised in
new locations even when they are normal. When they are ill, their stress levels
quadruple. Home visit based vet care is the need of the hour. Pet animals then
need emotional security of their homes and pet parents. So home visitation
infra has to be made available on a not for profit basis with multiple options….
Most of which is available in Bangalore except that the veterinarians themselves
are not bothered.
We need dedicated ambulances for
animal health care both in urban and rural areas. Vet care hospitals in many
areas within the residential suburbs and CBDs as well need to be set up.
Dedicated ambulance lines have to be set up.
Changing the mind-set of such
mindless veterinarians needs Media attention to giving them a public dressing
down.
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